Could Mandatory Work Activity be on the Brink of Collapse?

An evaluation of the Government’s Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) scheme, commissioned and published by the DWP, reveals that welfare-to-work companies are struggling to find enough placements for all those forced into unpaid work.

In a further blow to the DWP’s plans for mass workfare, this report was released before several major charities, including Scope, British Heart Foundation, Age UK and Cancer Research announced they were pulling out of the scheme.

Mandatory Work Activity is just one of several workfare schemes, and involves four weeks full time unpaid work for organisations which can demonstrate a ‘community benefit’. The scheme is used as punishment for those claimants not deemed to be trying hard enough to find work by Jobcentre advisors. Under DWP rules it is not possible to volunteer for the scheme.

The report states that 33,170 people began on MWA between May 2011 and August 2012. Of these around 75% of claimants were forced to work in charity shops, the very organisations who currently claim to be abandoning workfare. Even before charities finally took a principled stand on unpaid work, the study shows that three districts in the UK were not meeting the minimum period of ten days between referral to the scheme and workfare beginning. Welfare-to-work companies, who are paid for everybody they send on workfare, claim this is down to them being unable to source enough work placements.

One of the main reasons for the lack of placements is cited as “The high profile withdrawal of placements from a number of larger charities meant a sharp reduction in placements.”

The report also highlights problems finding placements due to competition from other workfare programmes as well as Community Payback. Claimants on MWA are sentenced to a similar length of unpaid work as a mid-level community service punishment and often work alongside those convicted of an offence.

The evaluation blows apart some myths which have emerged about the scheme. It has been suggested by MWA is often used when someone is suspected of working illegally whilst claiming benefits. The report confirms that this is not one of the main uses of the scheme by Jobcentres, but instead it is used when advisors believe someone is not ‘motivated’ or there is ‘doubt’ about a claimant’s commitment to look for work.

An earlier assessment of MWA had concluded that many claimant’s sign off benefits when referred to workfare. This study finds this effect is only temporary, concluding that “the benefit impact over the first 21 weeks equates to referred individuals being off benefit for an average of about four days more than if they had not been referred.”It is clear that MWA does not help people find work and nor does it reduce the numbers of people on benefits. Some claimant’s even reported that the scheme made it more difficult to find work: “MWA will make it harder for someone to look for a job. It’ll make you more miserable – working for nothing and no time to look for a job.”

Many charities who had previously been only too happy to exploit the amount of free labour available due to MWA had attempted to suggest that that their involvement was intended to support unemployed people into work. The report reveals the real reason so many charities were quick to sign up to workfare:

“The majority of the hosts described getting involved in MWA to provide staff for their organisations, which in many cases relied on unpaid staff to operate. Indeed several described coming to rely on MWA to provide a steady supply of staff. “

The report also highlights just how early into people’s claims MWA is often used, stating that there is a push to refer claimants onto the scheme when they have been on benefits just 13 weeks.Finally the study makes some concerning recommendations, including extending the length of MWA to eight weeks. It is also suggested that the ‘community benefit’ stipulation be relaxed, meaning that more claimants would be sent to replace paid jobs in places like Superdrug and Poundland.

Once again workfare isn’t working, so the DWP want more workfare. But the key part of this report is the desperate shortage of placements. Tony Blair’s New Deal, the first large scale workfare scheme for 18-25 year olds, largely collapsed due to lack of placements.

This isn’t stopping Iain Duncan Smith steaming ahead with ever more plans for forced work. From the 3rd December sick and disabled claimants can now be mandated to workfare. The Community Action Programme, which involves six months workfare and is already a disaster, is also to be hugely extended. Workfare for young people with little work history is now beginning in London.

According to the MWA study, those who weren’t employed in charity shops were largely working for recycling or conservation charities. The Conservation (so called) Volunteers (@tcvtweets) have been revealed as one of the largest exploiters of unpaid work. Pressure on these shabby organisations – who are only to happy to undermine genuine volunteering by forcing people to work for free – can only hasten the inevitable demise of forced unpaid work.

It’s extremely hard to find out information about anybody doing the MWA. Many Charities have been furtive about this – partly a relic I suspect from the fact that MWA ‘placements’ are exactly the same as those for people doing ‘community payback’ or whatever they call the sentences for minor offences by the Magistrates. ‘I really know a lot of people round here and I have yet to get details of any case that I can publicise.

On a similar note, anybody with more information about the parasites setting up the Community Action Programme would give us a target to campaign against.

Having taken a career break after 34 years in employment and being made redundant I then signed on for JSA. Then after 3 months on JSA, and being told by my JobCentre advisors that I was working very hard at finding new job, I was asked if I would ‘like’ to be involved in the work experience volunteer scheme as it would be good to put on my CV after having this career break. At NO time was I told that it was mandatory. Sounded like a good idea at the time as the interviews were not coming through! Imagine my surprise when the letter arrived with the threats of sanctions if I did not complete the 30 hours per week for 4 weeks (120 hours in total must be completed). I too was allocated to a charity shop (Sense). Oh and you have to make up the time if you go for interviews. I am working alongside another MWA candidate who will definitely benefit from the experience having never worked before.
I am not complaining about doing the voluntary work but it does leave you little time and energy, especially having to run my home, pets and relatives to spend the same amount of time I was doing previously searching and applying for jobs.
All I can say is thank goodness I have got a new job and I can go back to being treated like a worthwhile human being!

We have to boycott charity’s that use free Labour do not give to these charity’s or buy from them. Do not use the shops that use free labour and complain by emails etc,Asking why they do and telling them what you think.
Tell your neighbours, friends, family and write to local papers name them.
Lets gear it up!.Remember it could be your family member next.

Had another few thoughts,I don’t know who reads these webpages but any union members out there?Tell your members to complain to the free loaders ,will not shop here until Etc. We need to put this in print who’s in the programe .Any communist party activists out there,socialist worker etc. we need to tell people as not everyone has the internet. Students unions ,one day this could be your members. We need the people who are sent on this free labour scheme to tell us where you are doing your work and that’s how we will know People power.!

I hope Work(un)fare collapses really soon- no one should be forced to work for benefits. There are not enough paid jobs to go around, but all members of society should be entitled to some money to enable them to survive- they should not be forced into working for significantly less than the minimum wage in exchange for this money. Until Workfare is scrapped, people should boycott any businesses who take part, as well as refusing to donate to any charities who support it.

work fair might be taking the vacencys for payed jobs away from those seeking work, but if you are lacking skills in jobsearching and need help with cv’s / interview skills etc. then its fair that you should attend courses to improve your skills and chances.
i think that people who are capable of working should at least be prepared to do a few hours a week working in the community, its good for selfworth among other things. but workfair is not the answer its an excuese to use free work and exploit people for doing what a full time/part time person would do.

“if you are lacking skills in jobsearching and need help with cv’s / interview skills etc. then its fair that you should attend courses to improve your skills and chances”

No. It’s fair to be *offered* the chance to improve your skills (genuinely improve them, not just let a WP org check your name in its list and collect £400 without passing go or doing anything remotely useful), but then we already have a pretty good system that allows people to improve their skills in this country – the further/higher education system. Except that when people try to avail themselves of that, government has a nasty habit of kicking them off benefits because they’re “not available for work”. It’s almost as though improving your skills is not what they want at all…

“i think that people who are capable of working should at least be prepared to do a few hours a week working in the community”

I think most people are. However, the DWP aren’t at all happy about that. Spend too many hours volunteering, or commit yourself too firmly, and again – no benefits for you! It’s almost as though they regard people actually volunteering for things as taking something away from them… and that something would appear to be the chance to force people to work at the very same organisations. Odd, that. One might assume that getting people to give their time to good causes wasn’t what they were after at all…

I have got all these attributes in skills to which you get on the mwa ! but i am still forced to go on one mwa on 18/01/2012 at the pdsa in otley leeds / travel 8 mile one way a overall journey of 16 miles by bus start at 9am and and finish at 5pm, 5 days a week for my benefit . i work that out 40 hours not 30 . which is proper slave labour how the sytstem is laid out ! i.e that works out at a wage p.h at less than £3 an hour . this is well illegal; and is infringing my human rights to the law set out in this country to which pays the minium wage of £6.05. and not around £3 . can anybody tell me how to stand up and not consent to being force onto this mwa . would much appreciate any information .

Organizations that do work of community benefit? My Work Coach told me I could work in Poundland for a month filling shelves for no pay. I replied “why would anyone want to do that?”. Encouraging people to do a bit of charity work is one thing, but work for an actual profit-making company, for no wage? FUCK OFF.

A recent article in the Guardian was an eye-opener. In Derbyshire the Conservation Volunteers had a database of 200 organisations with which they placed jobseekers. A representative of TCV said:

‘one MWA placement was at a food preparation factory but jobseekers were asked to “gather up recycling materials” in accordance with DWP rules that all forced placements must be “for community benefit”.’

And this organisation gets £19 million of taxpayers’ money for running schemes like this!

Even when I was on New Deal a couple of years ago they couldn’t find a work placement for me. After about 6 weeks they sent me to a Community Centre at the other side of town, miles away from where I live, 2 bus journeys each way, and when I got there they had nothing for me to do! I sat in a little office out of the way, spent all day surfing the net and drinking coffee, in between going outside for a roll-up. It was a complete and utter waste of time.

Good on you Small business Owner. It is unfair to people, and if you force a person you will NOT get the best work. If someone wants to volunteer thats different. Even a few charity shops in my home town are closing down.

Consider yourself shaken warmly by the hand, Mr/Ms Small Business Owner! Just out of interest, though – how easy would it be for you to avail yourself of free forced labour, if you did want to? I’m wondering this, because you might have a case against government under EU competition law, on the grounds that they are unfairly skewing the employment market – and therefore the ability to compete in the open market – in favour of large companies by massively subsidising their wage bills.

Especially if your small business is one that supplies temporary or seasonal workers to larger companies.

Good for you! What we need in this country is MANY more real jobs and then unemployed people will find the jobs. Strangely, unemployment goes down when the economy grows and the companies need more workers but IDS and our esteemed PM don’t understand this.

Well there were plenty of companies using jobseekers when i was last sent on their scheme. And there are few xmas jobs this year so I assume there using jobseekers and not hiring. Unions should sort themselves out cause soon enough half there members will probably be unemployed. Are workfare placements counted as jobs in gov figures ?

Sadly the mainstream unions seem all to ready to either ignore, (bury their heads in the sand) or simply to remain silent on the issue. Most members of mainstream unions also appear not to care. The only unions that are actually doing something to really organise amongst the low paid and unemployed are the IWW and the IWA, both grass roots unions that are truly controlled by their members, and who have managed to organise the cleaners in London, some of whom work for John Lewis. The IWW are organising Starbucks workers in the UK, as they have already done in the USA. And yet,most mainstream unions remain vitriolic towards both the IWW and the IWA, thus proving where there sympathies really lie. I’m not saying that each and every ordinary member of mainstream TUs are opposed, as this is far from the case, but this is the prevailing attitude of the leadership of the mainstream unions. By and large the mainstream union leaderships seem to have their snouts in the very same troughs as the Tory vermin.

today a friend of mine said she might give a windfall away to charity and I told her not to, that all these charities were scams that used workfare, sucked down taxpayers money and drove viable businesses to the wall with unfair competition. I will be telling all my friends the same thing.

The Comment: “Actually you can complete an OU course as long as you do not exceed 90 credit points in one year (for funding and remaining part time).

However on another note, what the coalition has been hiding in rhetoric concentrating on bedroom tax and benefits caps is that when Universal Credit comes into force persons who are ‘Full conditional’ ( JSA is the current equivalent) they will only receive housing benefit for up to 2 years. If there is no break in their FC claim then after 2 years Housing Benefit will be sanctioned/ removed. So their are going to be many more homeless once UC is in full swing.”

As far as I know it isn’t; the guidelines are confusingly written on this point, but it appears to be merely restating the current rule about mortgage interest assistance, rather than applying it to all housing costs.

” The evaluation blows apart some myths which have emerged about the scheme. It has been suggested by MWA is often used when someone is suspected of working illegally whilst claiming benefits. The report confirms that this is not one of the main uses of the scheme by Jobcentres, but instead it is used when advisors believe someone is not ‘motivated’ or there is ‘doubt’ about a claimant’s commitment to look for work.”

I’m afraid I’m not that sure or it’s 6 of 1 and half a dozen of the other …I do believe they are targeting people that are working cash in hand in the ever growing black economy .

That has always gone on …..go back to the builders strike of the early 70’s …Ricky Tomlinson and the other Shrewsbury workers being imprisoned ….one bone of contention was ” the lump ” workers claiming benefits on the side ….it’s always been a true blue to the bone …cut throat industry

Thatcher was arguably ! benign about it , and it carried on in the Majorite 90’s , whilst the place I worked at was being rebuilt …the building lads used to go back every other monday to sign on …..in a case like that , the question begged is ….Who is the organ grinder and who are the monkeys ? ….what is the more serious benefit fraud offence ?

The Governments be they true blue Tory , or purple New Labour have always been obsessed with catching this hard core …and they’ve wheeled out scheme after scheme to no avail . New Labour had a benefit integrity scheme ….problem was that the scheme collapsed under the weight of appeals and tribunals …50 % winning at least .

Another New Labour idea was to send compliance officers to claimants homes that they believed were working on the side ….the idea was to have people waiting in for them to come round thus cramping their style ….the DWP officer would be looking round flats like a hawk to see if they’d been splashing the cash …new telly etc …checking accounts to see how much they had or hadn’t been spending .

If I remember rightly …I think ? Goebbels Grayling went over to the lions den and did a article in The Guardian …..he is supposed …and I emphasize the word supposed …. to have sat in on a JCP + interview , personally it sounds like the claimant was very compliant …sounds like he had been threatened ….and there was a lot of ” pressure ” from on high on the JCP + employee ? ….apparently re workfare he mentioned the lad had been working anti social hour shifts in a night club ….Grayling defended workfare as it was a way of cramping people’s style .

Also there’s this apparent paranoia and control freakery from the Tory ministers ….terrified about people getting one over on them …IDS …re Remploy ….” what makes you think you can do what you like ” or words to that effect .. a Whitehall Source …” when we say tap dance , they’ll tap dance “

Even the poverty business is feeling the stark reality of our fake austerity.
“A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s labour”
All the Torie⚡⚡ know is that the saying contains the word ‘labour’, so the concept must be destroyed destroyed destroyed…
…even if Labour has simply become ToryLite.
“Will work for nothing”……uh uh, don’t think so.

It feels like no one is gettin it : all that the psychopaths in government are doing is destroying the benefits system/the nhs and killing people for fun and profit.
It all has zero to do with reform. It is all about psychopaths with power, weilding it mercilessly.
We really are in a great deal of trouble.

Let’s not get too negative about the Work Program. Look how it has helped one young man and how he can now bring his experience to helping his fellow human beings. Euan Blair, son of Tony, has now left his job as an investor banker (according to the Guardian he got this through his work on Capital hill working for a congressman) and has taken up the post as Director of Business Development for Sarina Ruson Job Access which runs the Work Program in certain areas on behalf of Serco. Perhaps Euan can now get placements for Work Program slave labour at Morgan Stanley (boot shining, arse wiping?) Anyhow it’s good to promote family values and he is following in the footsteps of his mum who happened to open the office he works in during 2009.

His Father Tony has also been trying to help the unemployed by offering internships where graduates get to work in his office at entirely no cost to themselves save their time. Of course there will always be the scroungers who want to shirk hard work but Tony’s office gave the appropriate response to one such malingerer who asked to only work four days out five free so he could work on the fifth to pay his living expenses – the open door.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/28/carole-cadwalladr-tony-blair-unpaid-interns (see also Private eye 1329, p. 9)

Lets look at how Nick Clegg is trying hard to support us in the Work Program and show some appreciation for all his efforts. Ray Auvray, a former Lib-Dem councillor, now runs Prospects Youth Contract in Yorkshire, Humberside and West Midlands. Times are hard and everyone is having to cut the cloth so we can admire how Auvray is only accepting £202K per annum as remuneration. It is entirely coincidental that Prospects were selected for this contract by the Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg who obviously doesn’t hold grudges against Prospects who left trainees to sleep under London Bridge whilst being forced to work for free as stewards during the recent Jubilee celebrations. As the song goes “there’s no success like failure” http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/love-minus-zero-no-limit

I have recently finished a book about the REAL inside story of the Work Programme. The whole thing is a fiasco and frankly it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money and devalues those who are trying to find work. Cameron, Clegg, etc are doing nothing more than throwing the unemployed into the cogs of a profit-making machine designed to make millions for private companies and, meanwhile, destroy a whole generation.

Yes, I got the album when it came out. I also like his version of Roy Orbison “Crying”. That line from Amercian Pie “With a voice that came from you and me” is widely thought to be a reference to Bob Dylan.

I was forced to do MWA at a British Heart Foundation Furniture Shop I had only been unemployed for about four months when I was forced to work at BHF the manager and assisatnt manager where rude and disrespectful all they cared about was hitting their sales targets and treated the anybody on MWA as substandard I’ll list some of the things MWA victims had to endure

1) Forced to work in a warehouse at the above the shop with no heating and in freezing Febuary temperatures inside the warehouse was the same temp as outside and not allowed to go into the warm shop unless manager wanted something moved BHF refused to get the heating fixed as it would cost too much.
2) Forced to unload 2 – 3 luton vans a day of furniture, fridges, washing machines broken glass and beds often urine and faeces stained no overalls, gloves, safety equipment provided we had carry any thing too large for the goods lift around to the back of the building a up some stairs often had to lift extremely heavy items 50kg+ without appropriate equipment once vans unloaded we had take sold items upto the loading bay and load delivery van often twice a day.
3) The manager and assistant manager were rarely able to ask you to to do something without either shouting, being rude or using the F-Word MWA victims were treated like second class citizens compared to people who volunteered such as shorter lunch breaks different sign in sheets the manager wouldn’t let you leave 5 mins earlier she would make you stay until exactly 5.30pm even if the shop was empty and every volunteer had gone home and the shutters were half down
4)The MWA Provider ESG Group were an absolute joke they called about 50 people into their offices with no explanation as to why they had been called in and then started telling people which charity shop they were being forced to worked at on my first day at the charity shop a ESG member of staff was supposed come to the shop to make sure I turned up provide time sheets travel expenses etc it took the ESG staff member 2.5 weeks to turn up which meant I had go 4 miles each way to the ESG offices to get new times sheets and to hand in completed and signed and get travel expenses which meant I had to make up the time I lost going back and forth to ESG offices and when I signed on.

One final thing if your ever considering donating or buying anything from the British Heart Foundation don’t if you donate anything that’s really nice or good quality odds are the staff will have it at knock down prices for example a nearly new Bosch washing machine was donated on the shop older crappier machines are priced at £170 – 199 and according to BHF own pricing guide it should been priced at £225 -250 a volunteer who was friends with the manager paid just £40 also vitually all the items are overpriced and often you can buy new items for less also they charge people who donate items that need to be taken to the tip even the council give them free tipping as they are a charity if you buy something your just helping the manager get his/hers sales bonus.

A close friend has just been told that if he can’t find work by April 2013 he will be ordered onto a TWO YEAR ‘training placement’ i.e. workfare. He’s one of the many who was legitimately on ESA but ‘cured’ by ATOS and now on JSA (still has the same disabilities as they are not treatable).

The fact that people on this scheme are forced to work alongside those who have comitted criminal offences shows how UTTERLY SICK, MENTALLY UNSTABLE AND DOWNRIGHT DEPRAVED this wretched ‘government’ is. Those who have been unemployed for a longtime are NOT criminals and shouldn’t be treated as such.

regarding any placement ask the work programme provider who insures the people on these placements then ask the company you are placed with as you are neither an employee or a volunteer if you arent insured under either provider or placement insurance its illegal as in the event of an accident you arent covered

this is work and as such we should be paid the minimum wage of £6.19/hour set out by euro ,,this is the only way to stop this slavery if we have to do it it should be fair . they want us to gain experience of work , then being paid is a big part of that ,,good luck ,,there is to much goverment will to keep this mandatory work and they want to save face so if we can force them to pay us then it will soon stop..

My grandson in Cardiff was put onto a MWA in May. His placement was with a company supplying a trolley service to Ikia. He had to take two buses across the city to get there. They had him working shifts and weekend work, he didn’t even get all his travel money back which I had to loan him. He has now had another letter from his job center saying he has to do another MWA and has the interview on Monday. I think its disgusting and free, cheap labour. He was told when he started there would be no job at the end of it and it wasn’t even classed as training. If all these companies said no to it then they would have to stop it. I used to vote for the current political party but I never will again or any of my family.

On Workfare you work 30 hours a week for 4 weeks, for less than £75 a week. On MWA you work 30 hours a week for 4 weeks, for less than £75 a week. They are the exact same thing – you’re working for 30 hours a week for 4 weeks for less than £75 a week. So MWA is just Workfare all over again… but under another name? Didn’t someone on here say Johnny Void actually supports MWA but not Workfare?! Why, looking at the similarities it appears to me “Workfare” has simply been re-branded as “Mandatory Work Activity”. They certainly are perseverant. The ID cards one is the best one – Government told no seventeen times until they stopped asking for us to all have ID cards. Seventeen god damn times. Children do that – asking and asking and asking and asking over and over and over and over again. CHILDREN.

Just revived my letter after nearly a month of waiting to hear of someone ,never heard a thing apart from he was on holiday and that’s why i had to wait so long ! anyway not a happy chappy at all my placement has been chosen with no initial meeting and its 16 Miles from me one way! (not very beneficial to my local community) i don’t really have a problem with the MWA but presumed it would be local as in my town i think a 32 mile round trip is a bit excessive.

Currently, the JC usually expect claimants to look for jobs within a 90 minute journey each way, though can make it shorter for parents/people with disabilities. Start by working out how long it will take you to get there.

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